Collateral Murder in Iraq

Posted on Apr 6, 2010

A United States military video was released this week showing the indiscriminate targeting and killing of civilians in Baghdad. The nonprofit news organization WikiLeaks obtained the video and made it available on the Internet. The video was made July 12, 2007, by a U.S. military Apache helicopter gunship, and includes audio of military radio transmissions.

Two Reuters employees—a journalist and his driver—were killed in the attack, along with at least eight other people, and two children were injured. The radio transmissions show not only the utter callousness of the soldiers, laughing and swearing as they kill, but also the strict procedure they follow, ensuring that all of their attacks are clearly authorized by their chain of command. The leaked video is a grim depiction of how routine the killing of civilians has become, and is a stark reminder of how necessary journalism is, and how dangerous its practice has become.

After photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40, were killed, Reuters demanded a full investigation. Noor-Eldeen, despite his youth, had been described by colleagues as one of the pre-eminent war photographers in Iraq. Chmagh was a father of four.

The video shows a group of men in an open square in Baghdad, leading the two Reuters employees to a building nearby. Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh are shown, each carrying a camera with a telephoto lens. A U.S. soldier in the helicopter says: “OK, we got a target 15 coming at you. It’s a guy with a weapon.” There is much back and forth between two helicopters and ground troops in armored vehicles nearby:

“Have five to six individuals with AK-47s. Request permission to engage.”

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“Roger that. Uh, we have no personnel east of our position. So, uh, you are free to engage. Over.”

The helicopter circles around, with the cross hairs squarely in the center of the group of about eight men. WikiLeaks and its partner for this story, the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, added subtitles to the video, as well as arrows indicating the Reuters employees.

Sustained automatic-weapon fire erupts, and most of the men are killed instantly. Noor-Eldeen runs away, and the cross hairs follow him, shooting nonstop, until he falls, dead.

The radio transmission continues, “All right, hahaha, I hit ’em ...” and then, “Yeah, we got one guy crawling around down there. ...”

Chmagh, seriously wounded, was dragging himself away from the other bodies. A voice in the helicopter, seeking a rationale to shoot, said: “Come on, buddy. All you gotta do is pick up a weapon. ... If we see a weapon, we’re gonna engage.”

A van pulled up, and several men, clearly unarmed, came out and lifted Chmagh, ostensibly to carry him to medical care. The soldiers on the Apache sought and received permission to “engage” the van and opened fire, tearing apart the front of the van and killing the men. The weapon used was a 30-millimeter machine gun, used to pierce armor. With everyone in sight apparently dead, U.S. armored vehicles moved in. When a vehicle drove over Noor-Eldeen’s corpse, an observer in the helicopter said, laughing, “I think they just drove over a body.” The troops discovered two children in the van, who had miraculously survived. One voice on the military radio requests permission to evacuate them to a U.S. military hospital. Another voice commands them to hand over the wounded children to Iraqi police for delivery to a local clinic, ensuring delayed and less-adequate treatment.

The U.S. military inquiry into the killings cleared the soldiers of any wrongdoing, and Reuters’ Freedom of Information requests for the video were denied. Despite the Pentagon’s whitewash, the attack was brutal and might have involved a war crime, since those removing the wounded are protected by the Geneva Conventions. WikiLeaks says it obtained the video “from a number of military whistle-blowers.” Wikileaks.org, founded in late 2006 as a secure site for whistle-blowers to safely release documents, has come under attack from the U.S. and other governments.

WikiLeaks has broken numerous stories and has received awards. It and members of the Icelandic Parliament are working together to make Iceland a world center of investigative journalism, putting solid free speech and privacy protections into law. The words of legendary journalist I.F. Stone still hold true: “Governments lie.” Because of that, we need courageous journalists and media workers, like Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, and we need whistle-blowers and news organizations that will carefully protect whistle-blowers’ identities while bringing their exposés to public scrutiny.

Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 800 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York Times best-seller.

Amunaor—-Thanks for the references. You didn’t
respond to my question “how can we get this info
communicated to the general public?” Your info was
a birthday gift for me. I turned 70 on April 15th.
Many miles under my belt. Some good. Some not so
good. So goes life walking on planet earth. Take
care.

No, I believe it is too late we just have to watch
the chips fall now. I was just a little disappointed
that the AARP forced Kucinach out of the presidential
debates, it really is of little concern to me now.

(((RE: JDmysticDJ, April 16 at 10:57 am #
Ofersince72
“the AARP does taint our politics and dictates to the
Democrat Party.”
So? Is that the “Dictatorship of the, (old and infirm,) proletariat.”? )))

Hey! Watch out there guys! I’m probably one of those ‘useless eaters’ you’re so much wringing your hands over; who has, in my humble opinion, more than sufficiently paid his debt to society.

I have yet to see any of my dictatorial policies implemented!

But, in a sense, you are right. AARP, having begun life as a champion for those infirm; is only a façade now; having matured into a pill dispenser for the pharmaceutical industry - the baptized drug-pushers of America - is no different than any other souless, bottom-line driven ideology.

In the end, everyone becomes old and infirm. Are you suggesting we should take the wisdom and knowledge of ‘our’ grandparents out behind the barn?

Although Higham managed to pry loose quite a bit, when he began his research, he did run into that ubiquitous stone wall. Even today, much of the Chase Bank financial transactions from that period are locked up in its vaults, behind that same old guise of ‘National Security’.

JDmysticDJ and Amunaor—-Thank you for the enlightening comments. Amunaor, where can I look
to confirm your assertions of Henry Ford, ITT, and
Standard Oil? It appears the major challenge facing
those of us who sincerely want to make a better world
for all need to find means to communicate to the
general public the real reasons wars have been and
continuue to be fought. The people making the money
off wars have done an excellent public relations job
of convincing the general public that our men and
women are sacrificing their lives for ALL of America,
God, and apple pie. The problem is the deceivers
control the media limiting access to those of us who
would enlighten the general public of what really is
going on. We can write books but the genral public
don’t read. They have been conditioned to watch ball games, soap operas, movies, and the rest of the trash those in control of the media want them to watch. How can we reach the general public when we
don’t have access to the general public? Those in
control have deceptively planned it that way!

Well stated, precise and eloquent. We seem to have the same understandings.

Perhaps a small matter of historical error would be the intent of our founders. The upside down pyramid would be somewhat distorted by the fact that only white, male, land owners were allowed to vote and, participate in our Founding Fathers government.

“John Quincy Adams was the first president ever to be voted for by the common citizenry, as the 1824 United States Presidential election was the first in which all free white male citizens without property could vote (with the exception of 6 states).”

Our Democracy has been a work in “progress,” but it has seen its ups and downs. I believe our Democracy has been on a downward slope for quite some time, but I believe you and I have the same aspirations, and hopes for a Social Democracy, which is not militaristic, and is based on egalitarian values.

Those qualities are precisely what the early architects wished to install here; prior to the currently existing debauchery, which has soared to perverted heights on unrestrained wings of ego; the unbridled gluttony of free markets and those who gorge themselves at the public troughs.

I always argue, although representative in nature, the preamble to the Constitution does indeed imply a family structure: of, by and for the people. Consider too, the fact that this Instrument was written long before the term – Socialism – became horribly stigmatized by the bloody events of WWII, propagandized by the Capitalists which succeeded to further drive the concept into the ground.

The founders perceived an upside down pyramid, where the mass of the ordinary folk were at the top; their weight maintaining the heady grasp of tyranny, in check, at the bottom.

In 1913, when the bulk of U.S. Corporate laws were passed, along with the Federal Reserve Act, the high-flyers circumvented those checks and balances.

Following the dizzy profits of WWII, the high-flying egos of Wall Street, unable to squelch their unbridled appetites, sought other fields in which to forage. Read: ‘Trading With the Enemy’ by Charles Higham-1983, a major expose of U.S./British Corporate collusion all throughout WWII, as though nothing was happening; whose end game was that no matter which side won or lost the war, the major players would come out on top. E.g. – While American boys were spilling blood onto flag and apple-pie, Henry Ford, with full knowledge of Dearborn, Michigan, was building trucks for Nazi occupation forces in France; ITT (International Telephone & Telegraph) was maintaining Hitler’s communication networks; via Switzerland, Standard Oil pumped fuel and lubricants into the German war machine, etc. etc. the list goes on and on.

The consequence of this has been a relentless buildup of a ruthless economy of dominance based exclusively on war and fear. Over the years, this same virus has infected other body politics elsewhere on the globe; in search of a hospitable host conducive to the survival of its rapacious nature…a new pseudo-democracy in Peking perhaps; when firmly entrenched, will it then look back at its birthplace, Wall Street, as a nuisance?
Julian Assange, of WikiLeaks, has provided a crack in the Imperial façade of lies, offering us a glimpse into the hideous face of the beast that normally flickers in and out of our range of vision. Let’s not feign that we just didn’t know, by ignoring or attempting to explain away that which we thought we saw, by futilely claiming that it must have been something else. It is our own brutal image that we glimpse here. It is why ‘they’ hate us!

The psychological abuse of children on the one side trained to pull the trigger on a manufactured image of hatred on the other; all to suite the profit takers of the gambling house speculators invested in the Merchants of Death and stolen resources of others.

Let us take this opportunity in providing Assange with the necessary support to broach the façade completely!

The Industry of War, along with MSM complicity, should be charged with murder and cover-up; the psychological abuse and traumatization of children, along with the murder and brutal displacement of millions from their homes, currently living as refugees in tent cities, somewhere out there in nowhere land; out of sight, out of mind.

Let’s not allow the callous words that have fallen from Secretary of War Industries, Gates’ mouth to ring true, as he: “ doesn’t anticipate the footage will hurt the U.S. image abroad. “ and “It’s unfortunate. It’s clearly not helpful, but by the same token I think it should not have any lasting consequences.”

That’s right Gates! Just look at that pile of dead bastards over there!

The solutions are easy. It’s getting people to agree to those solutions that is difficult. We need to live by the values that you espouse, and by the virtuous pronouncements of all religions, and great humanitarians.

In terms of foreign policy we need to stop being the brutal, hegemony seeking, enemy that we fear.

In terms of social justice, we need to value all people, and not live by covetous materialism, and greed based philosophies of false meritocracy. As Tao Walker has said, it’s a CONtraption, and a monstrous one, I would add.

I’ve been reading comments. It pleases me that you
folks understand extant worldly conditions. Now,
if you can just come up with some REALISTIC solutions. I don’t mean IDEALISTIC solutions floating around somewhere out there in La La land.
Just plain old simple realistic solutions. I’ll be
anxiously waiting!

There is the real world, and then there is the world as we would wish it to be. The one we would wish it to be would be a fantasy real world.

In the real world the AARP are a powerful special interest group from within, but not many would suggest that the AARP taints our democracy. The AARP is not a foreign occupier, from without.

In the real world Japanese militarists attacked us, and German Nazism declared war on us.

The real world would have to include the overthrow of freely elected governments and the assassination of freely elected leaders who were not in favor, along with the deaths of 3’000,000 Indo Chinese who were part of an influence expanding conflict. That expansion involved forcing an indigenous people to accept an unwanted governmental system forced on them from without, by a foreign military power.

There are litanies of other details about the real world, but citing them would be too tedious, and wasted on one who refuses to recognize the real world and devotes himself to denying the reality of the real world.

“Truly representative and egalitarian democracy, not tainted by the influence of overly powerful special interest groups, from without or within, is clearly the ideal, and is the goal of those who recognize democracy as being the best method of governance, but democratic processes have often been subverted, from without and from within, to the point where democratic processes have been made irrelevant in terms of providing social justice, and avoiding totalitarianism, and tyranny.”

-

Then there is the real world. The world wherein the most powerful “special interest group” in Washington happens to be the AARP. The senior citizens advocacy group which derives it’s influence by way of being the largest and most active voting block in the U.S..

There is the real world of the United States vanquishing both German Nazism and Japanese militarism only to turn around and build each up again and leave them their respective autonomy.

There is the real world in which events do not take place in a vacuum - For example; the real desire of the former Soviet Union to expand it’s influence over global affairs as a counter to the freely elected government of the United States.

-

The former world described above is fantasy. The latter tangible and human.

Truly representative and egalitarian democracy, not tainted by the influence of overly powerful special interest groups, from without or within, is clearly the ideal, and is the goal of those who recognize democracy as being the best method of governance, but democratic processes have often been subverted, from without and from within, to the point where democratic processes have been made irrelevant in terms of providing social justice, and avoiding totalitarianism, and tyranny.

“The process begins when the workers of a city elect their local soviet. This body holds both legislative and executive power for that city. The idea is identical to the Paris Commune. The local soviets choose their delegates for their county soviet. These county soviets in turn elect their provincial soviet. Lastly, the provincial soviets then choose their delegates for the regional soviet. Each soviet has legislative-executive power over the territory it governs.”

“Berlin, Monday, Aug. 20—Eighty-nine and nine-tenths per cent of the German voters endorsed in yesterday’s plebiscite Chancellor Hitler’s assumption of greater power than has ever been possessed by any other ruler in modern times.”

“An Iraqi national referendum on last year’s security pact with the US is currently scheduled to take place on July 30. According to Iraqi law, if voters reject the pact, which calls for the US to remove all troops by December 31, 2011, Washington would have to remove its military 17 months sooner—by July 30 of 2010. Should the vote be held as scheduled, it is a virtual certainty that the Iraqi masses will repudiate the pact.
Washington, of course, has no intention of obeying any popular referendum. Yet it wishes to avoid the political embarrassment of a broad repudiation of its occupation of the oil-rich country. “American diplomats are quietly lobbying the government not to hold the referendum,” the New York Times notes. The US has long justified its invasion and occupation of Iraq—which has resulted in the deaths of well over 1 million Iraqis and made refugees out of millions more—as a selfless exercise in building ‘democracy.’”

A long history of overthrowing “inconvenient” Democracies, supporting illegitimate Democracies, and alliances with Feudal Monarchies, puts the lie to those who offer Democracy as a rationale to legitimize invasion, occupation, empirical objectives, or chauvinistic atrocities. Evangelicals that advance their religions, political systems, economic theories, or any other ideology, by the use of military might, are veiled tyrants, and the result of their tyranny has been evident throughout the course of history.

Enlightened world leaders believe that there are legitimate uses of military might, but that they should only be used as a last resort, and under the direst of circumstances. There are those who consider these high ideals to be impractical. They are tyrants, and the supporters of tyranny.

Advancing ideology or national self interests by using military might is legitimate only to jingoist Machiavellian nationalists, war mongers, violators of international law, perpetrators of war crimes, and the perpetrators of crimes against humanity.

From the beginning of the 20th century, up to the present time, the realities of modern warfare and the rationales for that warfare have resulted in: The deaths of incalculable millions; human suffering beyond imaginings, and an immense squandering of resources.

Any efforts to eliminate or even reduce this madness, is seen as overly emotional, ignorant, impractical, irrational, or treasonable, to some, who present themselves as being respectable, reasonable, educated, and intelligent.

“I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature.”
Adolf Hitler

Americans are truly living in a politically correct haze. Everybody is outraged by civilians being killed in a war? What do they think happens in a conflict? The soldiers are not there painting and redecorating. Americans that do not want to keep living in a military state have the responsibility to speak up, to demonstrate, but if you still believe in the glory of “the bombs blazing in air” you don’t really have the right to complain, do you?

You make all the good reasons why we should have
never invaded Iraq to begin with.

Regardless of the way in is worded, or whether the troops
in the chopper were operating according to engagement,
many innocent people died. To argue about the symatics of
this one incident is a waste of time and does much to
take away from all the other atrocities that have transpired on to the Iraqi population.
Listen to the interview on the feed i put up here
yesterday, this was common place. Dahr Jamall was an
independent American journalist not imbedded with the
troops.
Haveing said that, I know from experience what happens
in a lawless environment with young men right out of
high school and a M16 in their hand.

According to the DOD report on the day of the incident U.S. Pilots had been fired on from the area observed in the video.

Real time video illustrates U.S. Pilots observed several weapons amongst the crowd. At least one RPG was said to be seen. A short time later U.S. Pilots fired precisely into the small crowd which, they believed, were hostiles.

Approx. 10:00 min. later U.S. ground troops arrived; assessed and searched the area in real time.

-Video in progress-

18:58 “Hotel-Six this is Four. I got one individual (KIA on the ground) that looks likes he’s got a RPG round laying underneath of him”.

-Video in progress-

30:08 “Fifty-One-Zero-Eight. This is BushMaster Four. I can hear small arms fire from your engagement area.

30:49 “We’ve got another individual with a weapon. AK47.”

(inaudible)

30:59 “Roger I have another individual with a weapon. He’s in the same building (inaudible) with the three or four who walked in previously. (inaudible) That makes six in the building.

31:51 “Uhh,.. like I said six armed individuals walked in there, in the building from our previous engagement.

-Video in progress- Decision was made to fire one hellfire missile into the building.

33:32 Pilots began discussing from which direction they should fire as not to injure any friendlies in the area.

34:09 Hellfire missile fired.

36:43 Second hellfire missile fired.

38:04 -Video ends-

-

I offer this additional narrative as context. Something Ms. Goodman often misses.

Both before and after the highlighted video of the 50cal helicopter attack, which very tragically resulted in the death of a Reuters reporter and his driver, this was not a peaceful and sunny afternoon.

Context. Video displays real time footage of U.S. forces in the middle of a battle. Not the beginning and the end.

-

I still do not have enough information to make a sound judgment on the incident as a whole.

“So what are you saying? You’re not emotional. Just intolerant, impatient and flatly unkind toward those whom you disagree with?”

You’ve got me there, I am emotional. I’m a human being after all. It’s just that I don’t have any regard for, your humanity. Your protestations are nothing more than a dialectic ruse. If by the remotest possibility my words were hurtful to you, you should ask yourself why? I don’t believe you’re concerned with my words being hurtful to you; I believe you’re concerned with my words being hurtful to your image.

Tolerance is a noble virtue; however there are things that are intolerable. I have no patience with your request for tolerance of the intolerable. Unkind? There are varying degrees of unkindness, aren’t there? Somehow I don’t feel any remorse in this instance; I guess I’m lacking emotion in this regard.

And you ask,

Have I been unkind toward you? Unjust? Disrespectful or belittled you in some way? What gives you the right to throw such overly emotional venom my way?

I’m not at all concerned with your kindness, towards me, it has no significance to me, what has significance is your lack of compassion for the victims of imperial aggression, which I consider to be a lack kindness, at the very least. You have stated over and over again in other forums that you believe the death and destruction inflicted on the people of Iraq was justified, so I consider you to be unjust, but if you’re asking if you’ve been unjust to me; that’s not an issue with me, and I think it’s a rather silly question. I have to admit that on this particular thread you have not been disrespectful to me, you certainly haven’t belittled me, and you have not attempted to belittle me, unless you’re attempting to do that now.

Moral authority gives me the moral right, and the 1st amendment gives me the legal right to criticize you, if I were “overly emotional” I’d want to do something irrational like strangle you, but I don’t, so relax. In this case venom can only be a metaphor for criticism, don’t be surprised if you are the recipient of more metaphorical venom.

Remember now, if you call me a snake, you’ll be guilty of being disrespectful, or maybe not, it would depend on one’s perspective. If I called you a snake, snakes everywhere would be most justified in feeling offended.

@don_knutson… you get it. good. “Join the US Army andFUCK the WoRLD OVER!”, as we used to say as the cops were kicking the shit out of us for disturbing their holy peace in the streets, back in the 60’s. My god, sometimes I think the aliens have taken over. How can thinking human beans be such savages. It’s the olde obdula oblongata man. The capitalist’s final ploy to mankind…: “blow up the world so we can make a profit on it, as it’s only natural.” That’s why I think it’s aliens…only from alien mind controlled recent earth events could this make any sense at all… unless of course you are under alien mind control…then it makes perfect sense. That helicopter is outside flying over your street next year. Blowing away all the riffraff, except for you, my dear Calvinist man. You are blessed and your white body will not be thrown so carelessly onto the human heap. No, yoou will just be turned to mush under our massive factory tires sold to the US ARMY at exorbitant prices, mind you. Good ‘capitalism’, down boy, sit sit.

I believe most Americans see it just the way you do,
there is just little we are able to do about it.

The 2006 sweep by the Democrats was Americans saying
GET OUT OF IRAQ.

The Democrat leadership showed their real colors and who
their real bosses are. It’s a shame.
There isn’t much you do, we can’t vote ourselves out of
this mess.
Your only protest is not to vote for any Dems or Pubs
for anything, local, state, federal. That is the only
hope America has right now.

AT 3:08-3:12 INTO THE VIDEO THE HELICOPTER “ESTIMATES ABOUT 20
INDIVIDUALS” ON THE STREET.

AT 3:46 INTO THE VIDEO, WHICH SAYS THERE WERE 5 TO 6 INDIVIDUALS WITH
WEAPONS AND THEN… “REQUEST PERMISSION TO ENGAGE AT THIS TIME.”

AND YES THERE WERE SOME PEOPLE WHO LOOK LIKE THEY HAD WEAPONS
BUT THEY WERE STANDING AROUND OR WALKING… AND THEY DID NOT
ENGAGE THE HELICOPTERS OR LOOK LIKE THEY WERE ABOUT TO ENGAGE
THE HELICOPTERS. THEY WERE NO COPS OR SOLDIERS ON THE STREET…

THE HELICOPTER VEIW STARTS TO CIRCLE THE AREA…

AT 3:53 INTO THE VIDEO A RESPONSE COMES BACK SAYING “ROGER THAT.
WE HAVE NO PERSONAL EAST OF OUR POSITION.”

AT 3:56 OF VIDEO THE RESPONSE SAYS “SO UH, YOU ARE FREE TO ENGAGE.
OVER.”

AT 4:00 INTO THE VIDEO THE HELICOPTER SAYS “ALL RIGHT, WE’LL BE
ENGAGING. ROGER, GO AHEAD.

AT 4:03 I’M GONNA… I CAN’T GET ‘EM NOW BECAUSE THEY’RE BEHIND THAT
BUILDING…

AT THAT POINT A PERSON ON THE GROUND IS LOOKING AT THE HELICOPTER
AND IS STICKING HIS HEAD OUT AROUND A CORNER OF A BUILDING (AND
PROBABLY SEES GUNS BEING DRAWN AND POINTED AT THE CROWD) ...

AT 4;08 VIDEO SAYS “HE GOT A RPG”

AT 4:11 VIDEO SAYS “ALL RIGHT, WE GOT A GUY WITH AN RBG I’M GOING
FIRE! AT 4:13 VIDEO SAYS AS THEY START TO GO BEHIND A BUILDING…
“OKAY. NO HOLD ON. LETS COME AROUND NOW FROM OUR POINT OF VIEW…
OKAY, WE’RE GOING TO COME AROUND.

AT 4:19 YOU CAN NOW SEE THE GUY WITH THE RPG… WHO IS WATCHING
THESE HELICOPTERS WHO ARE ABOUT TO FIRE ON PEOPLE AND…

HE WANTS TO GET A SHOT IN… TO TRY TO SAVE THE 20 OR SO PEOPLE WHO
HAVE NO CLUE THAT THESE HELICOPTERS ARE ABOUT TO OPEN FIRE ON
THEM…

AS FROM WHAT I SAW OF THE VIDEO… HE MUST OF HAD A BETTER SHOT TO
TAKE DOWN ONE OF THESE HELICOPTERS WHEN THEY PASSED STRAIGHT
ABOVE HIS POSITION JUST ABOUT 30 SECONDS AGO AND NOW WERE
CIRCLING BACK AROUND THE BACK OF THE BUILDING TO FIRE ON A MOSTLY
UNARMED CROWD OF PEOPLE… HE JUMPS OUT AT THIS TIME AND POINTS
THE RPG AT THE HELICOPTER BUT IT FLYS OUT OF SIGHT…
AFTER THE DUST CLEARS YOU SEE A GUY CRAWLING FROM THE GUTTER TO
THE SIDEWALK… VIDEO READS… 7:53—-

AT 8:36 INTO THE VIDEO YOU HEAR, “ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS PICK UP A
WEAPON.” AS HE TALKS TO THE GUY CRAWLING…

AT 8:59 INTO THE VIDEO A VOICE SAYS, “IF WE SEE A WEAPON WERE GOING
TO ENGAGE.”
AT 9:33 YOU SEE IN THE VIDEO THAT A VAN PULLED UP TO PICK UP THE
WOUNDED GUY AND TWO MEN, THEN FROM DOWN THE STREET A NOTHER
MAN RUN TO HELP PICK UP THE INJURED MAN TO PUT HIM IN THE VAN… AND
HEAR… “PICKING UP THE WOUNDED”

AT 9:34 YOU HEAR… “YEAH, WE’RE TRYING TO GET PERMISSION TO ENGAGE”

AT 9:45 YOU HEAR, “THEY’RE TAKING HIM! (IN A VOICE WHO SAYING…LIKE THE
GUY IS GOING TO GET AWAY…)

AT 9:57 - 10:01 THEY PLACE THE WOUNDED GUY IN THE VAN WHILE THE
HELICOPTER IS HAS REQUEST PERMISSION TO ENGAGE… YOU HEAR “FUCK”
AS THEY PLACE THE WOUNDED GUY IN THE VAN, AS YOU I CAN TELL THEY
DON’T WANT THIS GUY GETTING AWAY.
AS YOU SEE THE VAN PULL AWAY TO TAKE THIS WONDED GUY TO THE
HOSPITAL… AND THERE IS ONE GUY WHO IS OUTSIDE THE VAN AS IT PULLS
AWAY AND HE IS NOT ARMED…

AT 10:09 YOU HEAR, “1-8 ENGAGE, CLEAR.”

AT 10:10 YOU HEAR AN IMPATIENT VOICE SAY, “COME ON.” THEN YOU HEAR
MACHINE GUN START… AS THE UNARMED MAN DUCKS FOR COVER BEHIND A
WALL… AND THEY TRY TO SHOOT HIM… AFTER HITTING THE VAN…

AS A HUMAN BEING, I AM APPALLED, AS AN AMERICAN I AM DISGUSTED WITH
THIS ACTION OF THE U.S. IN REGARDS TO THIS… I CLARLY THINK THIS IS
MURDER. I WOULD HOPE THAT OTHER PEOPLE WOULD SEE THIS THE WAY I
DO, AND NOT ALLOW THIS…

I MEAN…THERE HAS TO BE SOME PEOPLE OUT THERE WITH A CONSCIENCE
TO SAY WHAT… THEY SEE AS… WRONG! ...LIKE THIS!

Why do you suppose the military refused to release the video to Reuters under the Freedom of Information Act? What do you suppose was the motive of the whistle blower who released this video to Wikileaks?

Read this,

PSmith, April 7 at 6:46 pm

“US deathcount in Iraq 1.5m. Afghanistan 3m. 3m in Iraq in twenty years and 6m in Afghanistan in thirty years by USUK policy. ‘But we are confident that we can reach a higher score easily,’ said Colonel Turgidson today.”

Though you deny it, you know that this incident recorded on video is just the tiny tip of an iceberg, and that is what makes you so loathsome.

The only way your stated aspirations for Iraq will come to fruition is if we get out and all the way out, and don’t deceive yourself into believing that the Iraqi people will ever be grateful for the invasions and occupation of their country. The memory of the death, destruction, and suffering will be with them always.

Like Viet Nam, and a myriad of other events that have occurred, the truth will come out, over time, and people like you will be fully engaged in trying to prevent the truth from emerging.

Your use of the word Allah was loathsome, but not nearly as loathsome as your clearly demonstrated indifference to atrocity and human suffering.

....Defense analyst Pierre Sprey, who led the design teams for the F-16 and A-10 and who spent many years in the Pentagon, stresses two particularly damning features of the footage. The first is the claim that Noor-Eldeen’s telephoto lense could be mistaken for an RPG. “A big telephoto for a 35mm camera is under a foot and half at most. An RPG, unloaded , is 3 feet long and loaded, 4 foot long. These guys were breathing hard to kill someone.”

Sprey’s second point is that an Apache helicopter makes a very loud “whomp, whomp” noise. “ Twelve guys are unconcerned, with loud helicopters right overhead. Imagine if they were planning an assault on American troops. They’d be crouched down and skulking along walls, spread out. They would not be walking casually down the middle of the street, totally ignoring the helicopters.”

A retired U.S. Marine was even blunter in an email exchange:

“Not a good show at all. The group on the ground were banishing nothing that ‘looked’ or appeared as weapons, especially the voiced ‘RPG’ which is so obvious when loaded. And then again – they were told in advance by intelligence (I am sure by the tone in the flight) that these people were bad guys. The Apache crews were just stupid and the intelligence clowns pointing them and egging them on are guilty of murder – ‘you are clear to engage’. GMAFB.”

In the aftermath the US military claimed that some AK-47s and a grenade launcher had been found at the scene. Sprey comments that, in the course of the subsequent coverup, the weapons may well have been planted, LAPD style.

Many people who have seen the same video see an RPG and Kalashnikov rifles in and amongst the crowd on the ground. You yourself have made an interesting argument (rationale) as to why some people on the ground had rifles on their person.

The pilots too believed they saw rifles and at least one (1) RPG.

Here’s the thing. Witnesses, claiming to have been on the ground at the time, say there was no weapons of any kind.

glider, - “It is unique thinking that you are criticizing my assessment as being inflexible and fixed and not open minded, when it is you that just bought into the pilots assessment without closely examining the video.”

-

Perhaps you’re not accustomed to people writing what they mean and meaning what they write. With me there is no need to “interpret”. I did not write, nor did I suggest, that you are inflexible and/or closed minded.

Perhaps you are used to the childish arguing that goes on incessantly on sites like this. Perhaps you are too defensive. Perhaps you’re spoiling for an argument. I don’t know. I can tell you that you have read me incorrectly several times.

Perhaps I am slower then most. Perhaps I am more cautious than others. Perhaps my twenty-five (25) years as an investigator has taught me not to be so sure of what I think I know. When I write that I do not have enough information I sincerely mean that I do not have enough information to make an assessment that satisfies me at this time.

The only thing I am certain of lays in the fact that this video does not display U.S. Pilots “indiscriminately” targeting people to fire upon.

-

So you have seen the video eight (8) times and you are satisfied with what you believe you know. There is nothing wrong in that. And there is nothing wrong with others who see the same video and reach a much different conclusion.

It’s important, in the foreground of the mind, to understand that the pilots had one (1) chance to observe and asses the situation. When your life is on the line, when you’re not sitting at home in a comfortable chair, everything about the situation looks and feels much different. It’s equally important to Fully Understand that U.S. Pilots had been fired upon previously in that exact area.

From my comfortable chair the death of those men on the ground, hostile or otherwise, is a tragedy.

“It certainly does appear that your mind is as
firmly set as the pilots appear to have been on
the day in question. Here’s the problem with
that. As it turns out those pilots may have
been wrong”

What??? I have looked at the critical portion of the video about 8 times. It is unique thinking that you are criticizing my assessment as being inflexible and fixed and not open minded, when it is you that just bought into the pilots assessment without closely examining the video. Quite the opposite is true. I looked closely at the video and made my own conclusion rather than just go with the pilots or Wikileaks opinion.

The bigger issue here is that war does not occur with the sanitized laser like precision that the MIC would like the public to believe. By seeing this video you can easily understand how errors (citizen murders) are commonplace in our military’s form of aerial warfare. And that the protocols used by the military do less to minimize that result than they do to provide an excuse to whitewash their deadly mistakes.

My own conclusions from watching the video multiple times is that a long telephoto lens/camera is very clearly mistaken for an “RPG”. Look with your own eyes, the “RPG” has no back to it and is being held like a camera. If there are claims that the military found an RPG launcher it strongly suggests it may have been planted or lied about to coverup the massacre. It also discredits any claim of other weapons being involved.

I personally am not able to conclude that no guns were present. If you look early in the video at around 1340 seconds you see 2 men in back with long objects being held as one would hold a gun. Oddly one of them appears to set his down and then walk over to the group (perhaps really a tripod bag then?). Another interviewed journalist on the site the following day has suggested there may have been armed individuals as journalist usually need to interact with the Iraqi neighborhood militias whenever they drove into a new area. Either way I do not see a good justification for the attack based on either of those scenarios.

I thought gunship pilots had to have 20-20 vision. So why can’t they
distinguish between a telephoto lens and an AK-47 or RPG?

These guys aren’t just assholes and blind, they’re dumb as rocks. No wonder
the US military is what it is.

Where, in the US rules of engagement, does it authorise gunships to shoot and
kill people picking up the wounded and the dead?

Where, in the US rules of engagement, does it authourise the mutilation of
bodies ie the intentional driving over of live, moving human beings?

This video clearly shows what happened in this incident. It is time to view ALL
footage of ALL incidents where reporters got harmed. The vast majority of
reporters and camermen in Iraq who got killed were murdered by US forces,
including two direct hits on Reuters best cameramen and the murder of an Al
Jazeera corro when US forces bombed the AJ office. Were these assassinations
or further evidence of the blind incompetence of US forces?

Which? Incompetents or murderers? It’s time to name the culprits, and get the
answer.

glider, - “What credible evidence do you have to refute what is clearly evident in the video?”

-

I can only repeat myself. I do not have enough information.

Most of the rest of what you opine has nothing to do with me. Clearly you are very passionate about the issue and have your mind set. But the targeting was not “indiscriminate”. The suggestion that it was takes away all context of the event.

Just to get a grasp on your extent of your viewpoint could you please tell me if you believe it was OK to gun down the rescuers, who did not in anyway fit the profile of brandishing weapons? Was it OK in your mind to gun down rescuers that come by 10 minutes later in a big city and give aid to critically wounded people on the side of a well traveled public road? Are you OK with targeting funerals as well?

“What are you saying? The determining factor here is how you and Ms. Goodman define “indiscriminate”? Not the context of the pilots?”

No, I am saying that the determining factor here is the reality of what was done rather than the mistaken belief of the perpetrators. The availble data strongly suggests that innocent Iraqis, journalists, well intentioned rescuers, and two little girls were gunned down by mistake. Those are the most apparent facts. But your entire focus is on making excuses to justify these actions and do nothing to investigate or prevent future murders.

“You appear to want to ignore that it has been reported that several weapons and an RPG was found at the scene”

I can clearly see in the video that there was no RPG/Bazooka, and that a camera with telephoto lens was mistaken as such by the pilots. This is collaborated by the death of the Reuters journalists. So what is you evidence that there was an RPG Bazooka present? Can you point it out in the video (please cite the minutes:seconds where you observe it). Do you not think someone who commits murder is under extraordinary pressure to come up with excuses? What credible evidence do you have to refute what is clearly evident in the video?

glider, - Why do you insist on defining “indiscriminate” solely on the basis of what the soldiers “believed” they were doing, rather than on the actual reality of what they did, as does Amy Goodman?

-

What are you saying? The determining factor here is how you and Ms. Goodman define “indiscriminate”? Not the context of the pilots? I’m sorry but I fail to see the sense in that.

I simply do not have nearly enough information to judge the rightness of the pilots actions. I only know what little I saw and heard. The pilots were precisely targeting, what they believed to be, hostiles. They were not indiscriminately firing into a crowd.

-

You appear to want to ignore that it has been reported that several weapons and an RPG was found at the scene. A scene from which pilots had previously been fired upon.

You appear to Want to put the incident in your own context. Not unlike Ms. Goodman, I suppose(?).

I honestly do not know enough about the incident. I only know Ms. Goodman is not one I’ll be relying on for accuracy and context.

Go Right Young Man,
A thought experiment for you. America falls into a state of anarchy and many of the different groups here carry arms to protect themselves under those conditions. In comes a Islamic force to stabilize our country in their image. They fly helicopters around our residential areas and “engage” what they consider to be armed individuals they deem to be “insurgents”. Your parents and family are mowed down by machine gun fire because they are nearby individuals carrying defensive weapons under these conditions. So tell us, how would that make you feel. Would you care that they exercised “discrimination” in killing you family members? Just what is the point you are trying to make?

Obviously it was. In fact it was discriminate to the extreme. Those pilots understood well who, they believed, they were firing on. It’s obvious if you listen to the pilots. It was a precisely targeted act.

That has been my only point. That and the fact that Ms. Goodman does us all a disservice by framing the incident as indiscriminate.—If you somehow believe I am making a statement concerning the rightness of the U.S. Pilot’s actions you have assumed too much.

I can only write again that I have no faith in Amy Goodman with context and depth. I find her opinions to be narrowly focused and driven by personal agenda. Thus her reporting that this incident constitutes “Indiscriminate” targeting when it was so clearly not. At least not in this particular case.

-

As an aside: I thank Allah that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. My real regret is that he’s not alive to see his former ghastly seat with a real chance to become a more Representative form of Government. A new government that doesn’t practice both indiscriminate and discriminate killing at a whim.

Allah willing the land Of The Three Rivers will again be a beacon in the Middle East. A beacon of leadership, innovation, education, pride and, most importantly, freedom.

Most of the people who see the video have the same response to it. Why does it not affect you in the same way it does others? The answer to that question has been obvious to me for quite some time.

I don’t know Amy Goodman except through her work. I have an immense amount of respect for her, because of her work. She has devoted her life to pointing out moral hypocrisy, injustice, and the very real costs of those vile realities.

You criticize Amy, while providing rationale for the killings, and when knowledgeable people present the data regarding the magnitude of death, destruction, and misery, as a result of U.S. actions; that data is not significant to you, and you continue to provide justifications for the moral and economic insanity.

It’s said that hatred is like acid, because it destroys the vessel that contains it. If that statement is true, this vessel is seriously threatened with destruction.

Let this evidence of murder be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Let us make certain that, like those millions of others, that these souls too were not violently and senselessly ripped from their bodies in vain!

There was no reason at all to believe that any of the people in that picture were armed insurgents. This was 2007 in Baghdad, the height of the war, when dozens of bodies a day were being picked up from the street, and when sectarian militias filled the Iraqi security forces, the police and the army. Every neighborhood in Baghdad organized its own protection force. And it was legal at the time for every household to own a Kalashnikov in Iraq, and most did. So the presence of two men, possibly carrying Kalashnikovs, in a crowd of civilians who have no weapons at all, is absolutely no proof of anything. The fact that there were journalists with cameras who were slaughtered while the shooters laughed, then drove over the bodies (one of which apparently was still alive before being driven over).

There is no excuse for this, and for the families who lost their loved ones that day, and the children who bear the scars, America will forever remain evil….

for those of you that want to see DN expand their
services,,,, put your money where your mouth is and
send them some money because that is all they have to
operate on….donations, and they don’t go out begging
to damn often compared to NPR or PBS, both of which
get most of their donations from the CORPOSTACRACY.

In the previous comments I meant to type “ruining”
instead of “running.” Someone from Truthdig needs
to write about the sicknesses and eventual deaths
involved with consuming sodas, candy bars, fast
foods, foods laden with sugar and sodium(try to find
cereal without sugar) and smoking cigarettes. You
could title the article “Collateral Murder In Business.”

Let me say that, by way of Amy, at least for me, I was able to learn a lot from
Jeremy Scahill. (I often thought there might be friction between, as he left last
year, or was it the year before, since he seemed to be an investigator of a much
higher level than her show could support, but I have no info on that, just
guessing). I’m sure everyone here already knows about his work exposing
Blackwater and more.

The Bible reads,“They that live by the sword will
die by the sword.” Doesn’t sound good for Uncle Sam.
Look who the terrorist attacked on 9/11. Business(The
Twin Towers) and the power behind business(the Pentagon). What is our government doing to protect
children in other countries where American sodas,
candy bars, cigarettes, fast food, etc. is running
the health of the children and will eventually kill
them? Nothing! Our government won’t take action to
protect our own children let along those in other
countries. Sodas, candy bars, cigarettes, fast food, etc. have been responsible for more deaths than in
all wars combined. It just takes longer.

and has very limited resources that can’t afford to
fight lawsuits because of information that can’t be
backed up, nor no way could afford to hire the
investigative journalists it would take to uncover a
C O N S I R A C Y
many are very disappointed that DN hasn’t been a vocal
supporter of the 911 conspiracy.
Please, just how could Amy or Juan do this, all they
would get out of it is their news service discredited
They do a remarkable job with the resources they have.
They can not afford to take on a conspiracy like that.
I would much rather see them on the air doing what they
do so well, than to be taken off for doing something they
can’t back up.

Feel the same way each time I watch or listen to DN! Especially in the deranged context of 2010 USA, to lash out against an Amy Goodman is kind of nuts. Still. What she and her show won’t touch seems to grow with each passing season. As the privatized corporate prison of our once great land does nothing but seethe with plots, she continues to absolutely refuse to go near anything approaching the word:

C - O - N - S - P - I - R - A - C - Y

In fact, she and her crew seem to go out of their way to debunk or ignore anything which points in that direction. How come?

The interesting thing about this video is how routine it looks and sounds. “Oh well, another day, another fifteen murders. Ho-hum.”

I cringe whenever I hear Sean Hannity laud our military, inevitably, as “heroes.” What—every one of them? Even those who shoot down civilians and children in cold blood?

The military, in the context of the illegal war in Iraq, are not heroes. They are paid assassins in service to the imperial regime in Washington. They are no more heroes than are soldiers for the mafia.

I recall reading a story some time ago about research done shortly after the conclusion of WWII. It was found that a majority of American soldiers in Germany, when they actually had a German soldier in their gunsights, intentionally missed. They could not bring themselves to commit murder. In other words, they had a big streak of humanity in them.

For the military, this was INTOLERABLE!

The military since that time has undertaken a systematic approach to REMOVING that humanity from our soldiers. Military video games, in which you “play” at mowing down victims by the score, complete with blood and screams, is part of that effort. So, too, is the systematic dehumanization of new recruits, through bullying and humiliation, in the human torture system known as boot camp.

Face it, folks. Being in the military, and killing other human beings, is a highly ABNORMAL activity. Such activity requires the deepest psychological brainwashing. Otherwise, our inborn humanity takes over, and we refuse to follow orders.

The goal of the military is to ruthlessly pound that humanity out of our soldiers. Obviously, they succeed. The monsters from the Id, however, torment the soldier for the rest of his natural life, in the form of PTSD, nightmares, booze, and drugs.

I taped this video last night when it was shown on
ABC News. Looks like the American soldiers were
well trained by their video games as children. This
article didn’t mention one soldier commenting about
the children, “Well, it’s THEIR FAULT for bringing
their kids into a battle.” Another soldier responds,
“That’s right.” Didn’t look like much of a battle
to me. Soldiers in a helicopter with advanced weapons against a few people walking harmlessly on
the ground. It wasn’t THEIR FAULT for having children with them. It was THE FAULT of a soldier
who pulled the trigger on a helicopter thinking he
was still in the mall arcade playing a computer game
to kill people.

Obviously you feel great passion for this subject, however, I’m afraid you misplaced my narrow context on the subject. I opined on only one thing. I wrote nothing on the rules of engagement or even the war itself.

-

It is obvious that the targeting was not indiscriminate. Amy Goodman, as usual, has done everyone a tremendous disservice in her reporting.

She, like so many “progressives” (whatever that is) will continue to chase their
own tails, around and around, banging into the truth occasionally, and
constantly left bewildered.

All because they fail to admit the false flag culture in our military. Whether
911, so obviously faked, Pat Tillman, heartbreaking, that violent fake
“revolutionary” Mousavi of the “Green” revolution in Iran, who is accused of
helping to blow up soldiers in the Middle East, when he was working for the
goons, to the false flag explosions that are happening every day, in Iraq and
Afghanistan, so that we don’t lose the poppy field profits or oil profits.

She means well, but it’s not good enough to change anything. Investigative
journalism means just that. INVESTIGATION. The false flags are too numerous
and obvious these days, but she (and others) hit a glass wall that says to her,
and other, you can only report and question certain things and no further. Why
is that? Question some things and not others?

Therefore I find her heartbreakingly lacking and very, very frustrating to watch.
And I am a donor.

If you are not afraid of the truth. Then look into the truth and accept the truth,
then, instead of banging your head against the wall every day, you can accept
the ugly truth and move on to understanding who the real enemy is. I’ts not
everyone in government or the military, but a whole bunch of them. Identifying
the trigger-pullers only is just simply stupid and detracts from real progress
with the truth.

Independent journalists Rick Rowley and David Enders were on the scene the very next day in 2007 and filed this exclusive report for Democracy Now!

RICK ROWLEY: We came to the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad one day after a US attack helicopter strike that killed twelve Iraqis, including a journalist and a driver working with Reuters. The US military claimed that they were under attack from rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire and that all of the dead, except for the two Reuters employees, were insurgents. But local residents showed us the remains of a burnt-out van spattered with blood and told us a different story.

WITNESS 1: [translated] The helicopter came yesterday from there and hovered around. Then it came right here where a group of people were standing. They didn’t have any weapons or arms of any sort. This area doesn’t have armed insurgents. They destroyed the place and shot at people, and they didn’t let anyone help the wounded.

WITNESS 2: [translated] I swear to God it was helicopters that attacked us. These people are all witnesses. They attacked us twice, not once.

RICK ROWLEY: Another resident went on to describe what happened to the man who tried to help the wounded.

WITNESS 3: [translated] The driver went to carry the injured, who had been shot in front of his eyes. While he was going to pick them up, the pilot of the helicopter kept flying above, watching the scene. They started firing at the wounded and the dead. The driver and the two children were also there. The helicopter continued shooting until none of the bodies were moving.

RICK ROWLEY: We asked the crowd of people what might have prompted the attack, and they said that when the journalist arrived, residents quickly gathered around him.

WITNESS 2: [translated] The group of civilians had gathered here because people need cooking oil and gas. They wanted to demonstrate in front of the media and show that they need things like oil, gas, water and electricity. The situation here is dramatically deteriorating. The journalists were walking around, and then the Americans started shooting. They started shooting randomly and targeted peaceful civilians from the neighborhood.

WITNESS 3: [translated] There were children in the car. Were they carrying weapons? There were two children.

WITNESS 2: [translated] Do we help the wounded or kill them? They killed all the wounded and drove over their bodies. Everyone witnessed it. And the journalist was among those who was injured, and the armored vehicle drove over his body.

WITNESS 3: [translated] The US forces, who call themselves “friendly” forces, were telling us on speakers that they were here to protect and help us. We heard those words very clearly. But what we saw was the opposite of that. We demand the American Congress and President Bush supervise their soldiers’ actions in Iraq.

‘U.S. personnel, correct or not, believed those who were targeted were carrying weapons. There was nothing “indiscriminate” about the killing’

That is real comforting! If engagement rules were being followed it is a recipe for guaranteed high civilian kill rates. Those initially killed were near someone carrying a weapon-like object as discerned from a distant helicopter. If there is no such object, a call up the chain of command to get verbal “approval” from someone not witnessing any of the real data suffices. No doubt this process absolves all of any blame in our military courts and is part of the institutionalized killing machine. Your claim that the soldiers targeted only those they thought were carrying weapons is absurd. The rescuers were not carrying weapons which the video and dialog acknowledges, and were essentially medics that were slaughtered regardless. That comes pretty close to fitting Amy’s description of “indiscriminate” (not the best description I grant you). Inspite of this the blame lies in the hands of the politicians and the MIC. People need to be aware that this is the reality of war, and it is not what these perpetrators would have you believe.

Peter Joseph’s reductionist view of the human component to a simple analogous comparison of software and hardware is quite shallow. It is also quite understandable though, since this perception is a malady of the times, resulting from the empty dogmatic religion of material-scientism; anchor to the ego; prison to the Ka. There is more to this than meets the eye!

Why should Peter Joseph’s ‘programming’ be any less suspicious? What is really lacking is any sense of intuitive ‘discernment’; that prodding voice of the higher-self!

Peter Joseph is swimming in an ocean full of attractive deception, baited by a sprinkling of truths and half-truths, enticement to eat all of the fish-food.

Please spare a moment for the colleagues of these journalists. Reuters has lost
so many people, they got hit very hard in Iraq. It’s devastating to lose
colleagues in this way, and keep working, keep it together, be appropriate and
effective while your heart and head are breaking. And now, to actually see this,
to see your own brave colleague crawling, and come so close to safety, despite
these circling vultures, and then to actually hear how these guys spoke and
laughed at some of the things that happened. This is really hard for a lot of
people.

So yeah, wikileaks matters. Well done wikileaks. Just remember that there are a
number of people out there who went through a lot of shit with this, and now
they’re going through it all over again. And this is only two of seven people lost
in five years in a small bureau, only two of 150 journalists during the worst
period of that war.

The Americans are trigger happy. They border on uncontrolled. There’s a
problem with their training and their discipline. This isn’t even about rules of
engagement, although it is that too. What’s the difference between a soldier and a thug with a gun? I thought it was discipline.

I couldn’t watch this. My ex-Green Beret buddy from Viet Nam wore a t-shirt for years that had printed on the front and back: “Kill them all and let God sort them out.” Of course this is a paraphrase from antique French spoken in the 13th century outside of the town of Albi, where the Pope’s legate pronounced this judgment on the town’s occupants during the Inquisition and the Crusade against the Cathars. Today it is the “capitalists” pronouncing this death sentence on any who buck the empire… striking hopeless fear into all human beans of whatever stripe. If you are in front of the war machine you die. All Hail Eris, goddess of chaos and death!
“Everyone must submit and everyone must die.”—the motto of the modern American Army.

Welcome to war. This is the reason for so many Innocent casualties in war. Just because some of the men had weapons, does not mean they are insurgents or radicals, it may mean they are just trying to protect themselves. And what if they were insurgents, shouldn’t ground troops have been called in to investigate? We can’t beat terrorists with drones and helicopters. We need to engage the police as their innocent casualty rates are much less than the military, who use much higher caliber weapons and tend to kill everyone in the room, vs picking out the threats. We should never have gone into Iraq, and those responsible should be prosecuted for war crimes so we can stop presidents from deciding who to blow up next and give the power back to congress to declare war. The president, also, should not be able to restrict the media in any way, allowing people the right to protest this war, by seeing the facts on the ground, not some whitewashed cover up of the actual atrocities committed. Tell your sons and daughters not to join the military in this country, they only defend the corporations and their “right” to exploit other people’s natural resources as if they were their own. When the president says it is in our National Interest, it most certainly isn’t your interests, just the corporate welfare system’s interest, you know, like how the financial sector can cause 8 million to lose their jobs, but makes the government pay for the unemployment, even though it was the gamblers on Wall St. that caused the jobs loss, they will never pay a dime, since that cost is externalized by the greedy and put on the backs of the workers.

There has been some analysis done by service members that have experience with these cameras, and a few of them have judged that there was in fact one person with an RPG that was pointed in the vicinity of the Crazyhorse helicoper. They also comment that one of the individuals did have an AK-47.

I seem to not be capable of discerning whether or not these objects appear in the video. Am I right in guessing that its not uncommon for a deeply imbedded journalist to hire armed security detail? Of course, the appearance of an RPG would be excessive.

I thank these experienced bloggers for providing some much needed insight that is lacking due to the DoD being caught off guard by the sudden release of the video. But, I really hope we don’t focus to much on what might have been omitted from Wikileaks commentary. Instead let us focus on what is more likely a heinous crime.

In Chapter II, of the Geneva Conventions section on treatment of enemy wounded it says, ” The personnel engaged exclusively in the collection, transport and treatment of the wounded and sick, and in the administration of medical formations and establishments, and chaplains attached to armies, shall be respected and protected under all circumstances.” That would make the firing of 30mm rounds on the occupants of the van an illegal slaughter that the DoD needs to investigate.

This incident certainly doesn’t bode over well for those military recruitment ads that show careful surveillance of enemies to establish a threat. This video shows a thirst for blood, body count, and complete disregard for the respect of a human body.

The fact that they wanted nothing left moving or breathing in that city block was evident, and reveals a side of soliering that that has been systematically kept from the public at an increasingly agressive level since Vietnam. And its because of that, we need to support Wikileaks and other groups who expose these crimes.

In These Times magazine has just published a series of interview responses to the question, “Why do the want to do us harm?” Well, I have a great addendum to their article that starts with this video.